Elizabeth in El Pardo!

Today after class I went to Palacio El Pardo with Kayla! It was super cool. It's only a 15 minute bus ride away from school. I didn't really know what to expect; all I knew was that it was royal hunting lodge and then Franco's official residence during the dictatorship. I thought it would be worth just checking out, and Kayla was also down to come with. When we showed up, we learned that you had to take a tour with a tour guide--you couldn't just go in and walk around alone. The next tour was in 45 minutes, so we walked around outside and then went back.

You were only allowed to take pictures in this main foyer, so this is all I got. But it was super neat. I'm glad that tour was required because it was definitely once of those things where I would've gotten next to nothing from it if I had just wandered around on my own, knowing nothing. The guide was super informative and I learned a ton. Only Kayla and I were on the tour so we got to ask a lot of questions and have it be more of a conversation. There were a couple times too where the guide (Belen) was like "I don't ever tell people this, but I'll tell you guys," which was cool. The palace is still actively used by the royal family for big events, like the current king's engagement party, and to host visiting dignitaries, like Eva Perón. When we were there the next people coming were ambassadors from Qatar. Half the palace was made when the Hapsburgs, and then expanded by the Bourbons later. The expansion was a mirror image of the original palace, and doubled its size. There were a ton of cool artifacts. They had tapestries by Goya. There were chairs that were a gift from Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico. Just everything there had some sort of meaning or story. It was funny because we were the only people there and there were all these employees, and a security guard whose whole job was to follow us around and flip the light switches. Everyone was super nice though--I think they were happy to have some American students there who spoke Spanish and wanted to learn their history.